Walking Through Spine 2D Animation Paths and Constraints

Spine 2D Animation’s Søren Nielsen posts a look at three of the sample files that come with the latest version of Spine. They all show off version 3.4’s path and path constraint features. Spine is really meant for game animations, but make no mistake, if it could be used for video content, it should be. It is a tiny powerhouse of an animation tool, clearly built for professional animators.

If you have done character animation in After Effects before, Esoteric Software’s Spine isn’t that. Spine is the real deal with a true bones and joints system, weighting, and constraints. If you are going to have a professional 2D animation package, you need to have constraints.

What are the possibilities in using constraints? Just have a look at the Stretchyman, Tank and Vine projects that Søren walks through in the video. Using Spine’s new path animations tools, bones and constraints, you can create a more complex rig. A great example of this is creating a rig that has stretchy limbs. By comparison, of course a stretch limb is possible in After Effects (for third party tools, check out BattleAxe’s RubberHose), but nowhere near with this same ease and control.